They Took Our Toothbrushes!

Yesterday we hired two “packers” from a national company to help us in the final stages of moving. First we had to pay the company for their time, for them to collect later. We estimated four hours. The company said we could easily change it to three if we called them the next day. They lied. The kids, yes they were kids, showed up and I had asked the company if they could move a few things to trash for us first. OK.

I’ve tried for weeks to find our ten year-old sofa a home at a local charity but to no avail. One wouldn’t take it because they no longer enter people’s homes for anything since COVID, another because we don’t have a driveway or garage on the 15th floor, and the last because it looks like someone had sat on it once. So it was sadly trash-bound. One of these kids wanted it for himself or to sell. So they spent an hour using nearly an entire roll of our cling wrap to protect it from the rain and place it in their truck.

The first hour was shot. Then I found out they didn’t know how to pack a box, even how to use a mover’s tape dispenser. There was no way these kids were getting near my mother’s Lenox gravy boat. As they tore off two-inch pieces of tape to seal an overstuffed or under-packed box, another hour elapsed. Then they quit for lunch and left for an hour.

When they returned they still didn’t know how to pack a box or use tape, I set them to books. A little better. Then bathroom closets. I asked them to stick to closets but no, even after being asked to leave everything be because we had to live here for two more days, they didn’t listen. They packed our toothbrushes in the toothbrush holder, how I shudder to think but I’ll buy new toothbrushes before using those. Then they packed my husband’s glasses. My husband can’t see without his contacts. Practically blind, after he takes out the contacts to go to bed, he puts on his glasses with titanium frames so he can lose them if he falls asleep watching the Tonight Show and they’ll survive.

Gone. We let them go an hour early. I just couldn’t take it anymore. They left thinking they were the cat’s meow and that they’d certainly be called back again. And in taking the sofa cushions now that it had stopped raining (and draining us of a number of tall kitchen garbage bags), they dropped the note containing their payment code by the elevator. I didn’t know what it was so when I found it, I threw it away. They called moments later from the road, and I searched for and found it. Yes, they got paid.

I’ve always believed in our public schools, and was a product of them when my very Catholic (at the time) mother checked out the parish school in our small village and found it wanting. This is something else altogether. One of them was just lazy and stupid and will get what he deserves in life. The other has potential, and a one-year old daughter, but may be limited by his education if he doesn’t know to fight for more. He thinks he can be a music consultant because he likes rap, but has never picked up a musical instrument. No, I didn’t let him touch my instruments, as I had already packed them myself.

Moving is a bear, but hopefully the extra work left to us to accomplish alone will get done. Today we get the keys to our new place, and a new living room carpet and sofa will be delivered there, that won’t have to be moved on Saturday. Lulu’s at doggie camp with our long-time in-home pet-sitter who she loves (I’ll bet she’ll run around with his dog and barely miss us) and we have movers coming tomorrow morning. We have the weekend to finish the move and lock up a ten-year phase of our lives.

That’s life as the sun rises over the lake and I get to packing. How’s your day going? Cheers! Dee